By Anthony Weiss, JTA World News Service LOS ANGELES (JTA) — A decade ago in Los Angeles, two organizations opened their doors with a call to prayer — or they would have if they had any doors to open. Ikar, led by Rabbi Sharon Brous, and Nashuva, led by Rabbi Naomi Levy,Continue Reading
By Suzanne Feinspan, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — I sat down last week to write about what happened in Ferguson. As I began to write, there was no doubt in my mind that there would be a “next time” as soon as we hit the next news cycle,Continue Reading
By Anthony Weiss, JTA World News Service (JTA) — Last week’s departure of most of the editorial team at The New Republic — including Franklin Foer, Leon Wieseltier, Judith Shulevitz and Julia Ioffe — didn’t just blow a hole in the landscape of American journalism. It also threw into doubt theContinue Reading
By Steve Lipman, The Jewish Week NEW YORK (The Jewish Week via JTA) — Just three weeks after terrorists killed four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, a man entered a Brooklyn shul and stabbed a 22-year-old Israeli student. New York police officers fatally shot the 49-year-old assailant, who reportedly shoutedContinue Reading
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The stabbing of a rabbinical student at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in New York underscores three things that Jewish security officials have been urging in recent years: Be alert for copycats, cooperate with law enforcement and don’t stay away from shul. American Jewish community officials have been on theContinue Reading
(JTA) — An Israeli man studying for the rabbinate in New York was stabbed while praying at Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn. Levi Rosenviat, 22, who lives in the West Bank’s Gush Etzion bloc of settlements, was stabbed at 1:45 a.m. Tuesday in the neck and elsewhere in the synagogueContinue Reading
(JTA) — Jewish groups called for civil and serious discussion about race, democracy and justice in the wake of the grand jury’s decision in fatal shooting of an unarmed African American teen in Ferguson, Mo. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs in a statement issued on Wednesday affirmed its supportContinue Reading
NEW YORK (JTA) – A growing chorus of Orthodox leaders are speaking out against the anti-Arab rhetoric of a prominent New Jersey rabbi, Steven Pruzansky of Teaneck. Following last week’s terrorist attack at a Jerusalem synagogue, Pruzansky, the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, wrote a blog post titled “DealingContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) – If Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Teaneck, N.J., had his way, Arab rioters and stone throwers would be shot with live ammunition. Arabs would be barred from the Temple Mount for six months. Any village from which two or moreContinue Reading
By Sara K. Greenberg CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (JTA) — I never imagined that a day would come when some of the world’s leading corporations would fund calls for Israel’s destruction, let alone at one of the world’s most prestigious universities. But that is exactly what happened last week at Harvard. MyContinue Reading
(JNS.org) The undergraduate student government at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) voted to divest from American companies that do business in Israel. According to the Daily Bruin, the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) voted 8-2-2 for the measure that calls for the University of California to divest from AmericanContinue Reading
NEW YORK (JTA) — More than a dozen members of a prominent Satmar Hasidic family in New York were charged with lying to obtain $20 million in mortgages while also receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in public benefits. Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of NewContinue Reading
(JTA) — A murder-suicide in Portland, Ore., has left two Jewish day school students orphaned. Portland police said that Ian Elias, 47, killed his ex-wife, Nicolette Elias, 46, at her home and then fled across town with his two daughters, ages 8 and 9, the Oregonian newspaper reported Tuesday. AfterContinue Reading
VANCOUVER, Canada (JTA) — A youth hockey coach in suburban Vancouver was fired for posting Nazi propaganda on social media. Christopher Maximilian Sandau, 33, was dismissed earlier this month by the North Delta Minor Hockey Association after refusing to remove the posts from his Facebook page, CTV News reported. SandauContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) – The Anti-Defamation League’s new national director will be social entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt — a special assistant to President Obama who earlier in his career co-founded the bottled water brand Ethos. Greenblatt, 43, will succeed Abraham Foxman, who announced inContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is now epidemic, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel told the Jewish Sound. But what really worries the researcher, who has been working with three deadly viruses in Uganda for 12 years, is thatContinue Reading
By Michael Adam Latz, JTA World News Service MINNEAPOLIS (JTA) — Early last week, national faith leaders called rabbis, pastors, priests and imams to Ferguson, Mo., a city rife with racial violence and pain. Along with my rabbinic colleagues from Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Justice, I responded to theContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service (This is part of a special report on conversion in America. Read our other pieces about who’s converting to Judaism, and about the 10 questions about Jewish conversion you want to know but are afraid to ask.) ORTHODOX Number of converts: Unknown. Over the last seven years,Continue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service I understand you’re considering converting to Judaism. Shalom aleichem! What sort of conversion would you like? If Orthodox, the answer is no, no, no. Tradition dictates that prospective converts be rebuffed three times as a test of their true commitment. For a moreContinue Reading
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee asked the U.S. Department of Education to insure that college programs receiving federal funds not include an anti-Israel bias.U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) in a letter sent Monday to Education Secretary Arne Duncan requested that standards of accountability beContinue Reading
